2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The concept of digital twins and digital threads as a modern strategy of manufacturing execution can be an abstract concept for some students. In this paper and presentation, the authors will describe how they are using an approachable demonstration of digital twins and digital threads using both commercial and open-source animatronics to showcase how a digital twin can be developed to mirror a cyber-physical system. Additionally, the instructors will show how a digital thread can be established between the physical system and the digital environment to control the physical system in real-time from the virtual environment. This paper and presentation will orient the audience toward these solutions as a starting point for discussions and lab activities with students on how they can use similar strategies to design and implement cyber-physical systems for industrial applications.